Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Hungarian Trains Live on Google Maps

Hungarian railways MAV could be the first rail company to launch their own real-time Google Map showing the live position of passenger trains.

A number of individuals have created real-time maps of moving trains by scraping train data from operators' websites and some train operators have even released their own APIs. However MÁV-START Vonatinfo is, I think, the first live Google Map of trains actually released by a train operator themselves.

The map shows the live real-time positions of all trains on the Hungarian rail network. You can click on any of the trains to view its full timetable. The trains themselves are colour-coded to indicate if they are currently running on time or are delayed.

If you select 'Vonat' you can search for an individual train. Enter a train number and the train's timetable is displayed and the map zooms to the selected train's track. If you select 'Állomás' you can search for and view an individual station's timetable.